My maternal grandfather was a quiet, bookish, dreamy young man, the son of Scandinavian immigrants, who grew up in a tiny farm community in cold, flat northwestern Minnesota. I know a little bit about his youth, despite not having been there, because on his good days he would talk to me about it. Out of his closet would come the old scraps of his youthful dreams, and he would share them with me for a while. He wanted to be an architect, or an artist, or a draftsman, or an engineer, and he had notebooks full of plans and drawings. They were meticulously done. That was his plan in high school, to go on to college and make a career building beautiful things.

My grandfather and I had a lot in common, which for reasons that will be obvious, caused me some concern later in life. We had the same build, similar features, the same out-of-place academic aspirations in an otherwise stolidly laboring class family. We even had the same first name, which did bother me at a young age—to avoid confusion, I would get called "little Paul", which was rather undignified (I preferred "PZ", which did just as good a job distinguishing us.) I don't know whether my mind was shaped by his influence, or whether we just had fortuitously similar personalities, but either way, we got along famously and I admired him greatly, on his good days.

There weren't many good days.

Grandpa was an alcoholic. He'd start on his first beer in the morning, and go through can after can. He'd make excuses to go out to the store or on a walk, and end up at the local bar. Most days, by mid-afternoon, he was in a heavy-lidded stupor. Other days (and these other days became increasingly frequent with age) he'd turn into a surly, bitter, mean drunk. He'd mutter racist slurs. He'd treat women with contempt; my grandmother, despite sticking by him until his death, was disgusted with him, and their marriage was not a happy one. There were times when he would howl obscenities at my little sisters and chase them from the house—I don't think my sisters have many fond memories of the old man, and I can't blame them.

But on his good days, I could still love him, and late in his life, he got a little grace at extravagant cost; a disfiguring cancer that took his jaw and eventually his life, but also got him off the liquor, and replaced the bitterness and anger with sorrow and quiet. He was mostly gone long before his heart finally stopped, but at least he had a few years without the demons riding him.

I don't know exactly what happened to turn the hopeful youth into the mean drunk, but there were hints. Lots of little things, bits of conversation, and one big thing. I know he couldn't go to college; his older sister, my great-aunt, was sent to a teaching college, and that was it for my great-grandparents' budget. There was one possibility, that still common option for the desperately poor: the military. My grandfather signed up.

My grandfather was never the image of a military man, but this was the early days of our involvement in World War II, and he was taken on. He even got a role that fit his career plans, as an army engineer. His weapon was a bulldozer, and he spent a few years hopping around the South Pacific, always back a few miles from the heavy fighting, fortunately enough, where he would knock down trees and build runways for airplanes. He wouldn't talk much about the war afterwards, just enough to let me know how dreary and unpleasant it was: big bugs and lizards. Sweat and dampness. Open latrines. The occasional sniper or errant bomb. There were no heroics, and I don't think he came home with any medals—I don't believe my grandfather was a particularly brave man (nor am I), and I don't think he had any desire to fight anyone.

One day when we were rummaging about in the souvenirs of his youth, I found an old envelope with some black&white photos from his war days, the only ones I ever saw. He was silent when I opened it up, and he didn't look happy that I'd come across it.

The first picture was half of a Japanese soldier. His face was sleepy-lidded and peaceful, but his body was ripped away at the stomach and guts were strung across the ground.

The second was a black scarecrow, back arched and arms and clawed hands drawn up. "That's what a flamethrower does to a man," was my grandfather's explanation.

The third was a group of smiling American soldiers standing around a jeep. A severed head was stuck as an ornament on the hood.

There were others.

"That was what the war was really like," he said. "Don't you ever go. Ever."

I don't know for sure why my grandfather gave up on his dreams and blew his brains out, slowly, with a bottle after the war, but I have a good idea. He was no hero, but he did his job and he sacrificed something important in the war; the government doesn't give out Purple Hearts for disillusionment, though, and some wounds don't show.

What stirred this reminiscence was an account of the Winter Soldier testimony on atrocities in the Viet Nam war, and the way some veterans are indignant that the conduct of our soldiers should be questioned. But why? Shouldn't veterans be the first to come away from the battlefield saying that war is an evil, that awful and wasteful and hideous and often unnecessary horrors are perpetrated in its conduct? I know veterans other than my grandfather (several uncles and my father-in-law fought in WWII, for instance), and I can't imagine any of them claiming anything less. Shouldn't one of the goals of a rational society be to remind us always that war is at best a desperate, necessary evil, always to be the last resort, and that what we find there isn't glory, but barbarism and ugliness? War isn't Rambo wrapped in a flag. It's dead boys in Viet Nam and remorse in WWII and torture in Abu Ghraib and mutilated bodies everywhere. Let's honor duty and responsibility, but let's also remember that a war is a symptom of failure.

My grandfather was no less a warrior than John Kerry, and no less a casualty than Max Cleland, and I think we should respect everyone who puts themselves in harm's way for us. Broken men, however, probably better represent what we win from a war than fortunate heroes.